Rev. David A. Baer, PhD
President and CEO
David Baer became president of
Overseas Council in 2004. Previously
he served as president of Overseas
Council partner, ESEPA Seminary in
San José, Costa Rica. During his
graduate studies, he gave lectures in
Biblical Hebrew and Old Testament at
the University of Cambridge. He is an
Old Testament scholar and has worked
particularly on the theology of Isaiah
(When We All Go Home: Translation
and Theology in LXX Isaiah 56-66).
David earned the Bachelor of Arts in
Anthropology from Wheaton College,
the Master of Divinity from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary and holds the PhD in Old
Testament from the University of Cambridge. He was awarded the John Stuart of Rannoch
Hebrew Prize at the University of Cambridge and holds certificates in German and Spanish
as a foreign language.
David’s passion is the training and mentoring of Christian leaders of vision, integrity and
competence who are immersed in the Great Conversation. He believes that every Christian
leader is designed for life-long learning, both formal and non-formal, and is committed to
that task in his own life.
“I was raised in a Pennsylvania Dutch family that taught me to honor God and trust in
Jesus, but my faith became my own during my teenage years. My family came under the
care of a pastor whose robust evangelical faith and lifestyle we could only admire. This man
challenged me to attend Wheaton College – where I was exposed to pastor-scholars who
took both spiritual life and their hunger to understand with the utmost seriousness. It was a
kind of rebirth for me, and I came to understand that Christians have a vocation to serve
God’s world with excellence, commitment and joy. I am convinced there is no more
important task than preparing articulate, committed, passionate and intelligent
servant-leaders for Christ’s people.”
David and his wife, Karen, have six children and seven grandchildren